It is all obvious or trivial except…

Bastard tax dodgers at Starbucks!

Starbucks, which came under intense fire in 2012 for the low amount of tax it pays in the UK, said it shelled out £6.7 million in total taxes last year versus £8.4 million in 2015.
…
Turnover also fell, from £405.6 million to £379.9 million.

Will you look at that the bastards! 1.8% tax rate. Outrage!

Our task, if we should care to take it up, is to find the idiots actually making that argument…..

One wonders whether the fall in turnover is due less to Brexit than to the levels of flak that Starbucks have been receiving from the “right on” section of the media, which has had a knock-on effect on “The Snowflake Tendency” which I guess comprises a goodish chunk of their natural clientelle.

jgh said:
“Are there any tax jurisdictions that operate a turnover tax instead of a profits tax, so we can compare?”

I don’t think anywhere has a true turnover tax instead of taxing business profits.

A few places have an optional low-level turnover tax for small businesses, as an alternative to profits tax (Tunisia and South Africa I know of, probably others), but larger businesses are still taxed on their profits.

Aruba has a turnover tax, but that’s instead of a VAT – they also have a profits tax. There were other similar examples in European countries before they joined the EU and replaced them with VAT, but again they were sales taxes, in addition to the business profits tax rather than instead of.

Closest modern example would be Jersey, which scrapped corporation tax and replaced it with a VAT-type tax. But I’m not aware of anywhere that has a pure turnover tax instead of taxing business profits.

I wonder whether the fall in turnover is more down to the rising numbers of competitors, usually providing higher quality coffee?

The initial novelty of Starbucks from years ago has worn off but credit to them for making other shops raise their game. Similarly Wetherspoons has raised the general quality of pubs (but they seem to have remained successful)

In the words of the poet, I don’t drink coffee, I take tea my dear. However, I am given to understand by my coffee swilling friends that a reliable source of good quality, good value coffee is McDonalds. I have noticed recently they have started pushing this in their advertising.

Probably reinfoces the real-world reality that a turnover tax would be impossible to implement, as how would you equibly tax a Company A that spends £9m on parts/staff/etc and sells them for £10m and Company B that spends £8m on parts/staff/etc and sells them for £10m?

@jgh: don’t go bringing logic and facts to this debate, don’t you realise there’s industrial grade virtue signalling at work here, without which the entire SJW Left would rupture itself with the pent up force of righteous indignation?

Incidentally surely the correct response to all these Company X has only paid 1% of its turnover as tax is to ask why the BBC pays no tax on its turnover?